North Carolina Mass Shooting Suspect’s Father Pleads Guilty to Unsafe Gun Storage

The father of a teenage suspect who killed five people during a 2022 mass shooting in Raleigh, North Carolina, pleaded guilty this week for his role in the incident.

The father, 61-year-old Alan Thompson, pleaded guilty to improperly storing the handgun that his son allegedly used in the shooting. Authorities said that the gun was found with his son after the shooting.

Mark Stevens, the district court judge overseeing the case, sentenced Thompson to a 45-day suspended jail sentence as well as one year of unsupervised probation. He also called the incident “a case of epic tragedy.”

In court, Thompson’s lawyer said there weren’t any warning signs that his client’s son, Austin Thompson, would commit any violence.

Austin is facing five murder counts as well as other criminal charges. He was 15 years old when he carried out the shooting, and his older brother was one of the victims.

His trial is scheduled to start in September of 2025. If he’s convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Russell Babb, who’s representing the elder Thompson as well as his wife, said:

“As a parent, Alan is living the unthinkable. He has lost both his sons and still doesn’t know why this happened.”

According to authorities, Austin first stabbed and shot his older brother James, who was 16 at the time, in their neighborhood in east Raleigh on October 13 of 2022.

He then proceeded to shoot a few of his neighbors, one of whom was an off-duty officer of the Raleigh Police Department who was going to work that day.

Austin dressed himself in camouflage and had many weapons strapped onto his belt, police say. Law enforcement officers eventually found him hiding in a shed close to a public greenway.

Following a standoff that lasted a few hours, Austin was taken into custody. Investigations say that Austin used both a shotgun and a handgun.

Luke Bumm, the assistant district attorney of Wake County, said this week that a handgun that was found in that shed belonged to Alan. Bumm said that the father kept the 9 mm handgun loaded and in a box on his bedside table that was unlocked.

As a result of that information being discovered, Alan Thompson was first charged last year with a crime for his role in the shootings.

This week, Babb said that Austin never showed any signs of being violent. In addition, Alan Thompson spoke with his son by phone twice in the moments that led up to and after the mass shooting took place.

As Babb described of Austin:

“He did not seem agitated. He did not seem angry. He did not seem upset.”

When Alan was driving home on the day the shooting happened, he noticed that there were police calls in his neighborhood, and he initially wasn’t allowed to go in.

Babb said his client was told that his older son was dead and his younger son was missing, which led him to believe that Austin went to pursue his older brother’s killer.

The lawyer said his client was then told by an officer that:

“Austin was not chasing the shooter. Austin was the shooter. … Alan never in a million years thought his own family member would behave this way. He is heartbroken.”